We Need New Cat­e­gories for Run­ning Shoes

Note: True bare­foot run­ning is skin on ground. Noth­ing else. How­ever, I believe that the real beauty of bare­foot run­ning goes well beyond foot strike to affect a runner’s whole form. This is the true ben­e­fit of run­ning bare­foot. Unlike some, though, I wouldn’t con­sider myself a purist. I usu­ally run in Vibram Five Fin­ger shoes and walk in Vivo Bare­foot shoes. How­ever, my form is still what I would call a bare­foot form even when in Min­i­mal shoes. In this guide I use quo­ta­tion marks around the word bare­foot to indi­cate bare­foot form with shoes.

Up until recently, run­ning shoes have mainly been clas­si­fied in terms of motion con­trol, sta­bil­ity, and arch sup­port. Such clas­si­fi­ca­tion requires a whole vocab­u­lary of words, such as neu­tral, prona­tion, and advanced.

When Min­i­mal shoes are included in the mix, though, a new clas­si­fi­ca­tion is called for. With­out another way to describe shoes, every­thing that’s less than a big, tra­di­tional run­ning shoe is lumped into the same cat­e­gory: Min­i­mal. The prob­lem with this is there are too many dif­fer­ences between shoes for just two cat­e­gories (min­i­mal and other). You need just look at a pair of Vibram Five Fin­gers and a pair of Nike Frees to real­ize they shouldn’t be lumped into the same category.

With­out more than one cat­e­gory for any­thing less than the reg­u­lar, large run­ning shoes out there, most peo­ple will remain con­fused and even mis­guided when it comes to “bare­foot” run­ning shoes.

3 Types of Run­ning Shoes

I pro­pose that there are three dif­fer­ent types of run­ning shoes out there: Min­i­mal, Reduced, and Full. The names ref­er­ence the amount of shoe: a min­i­mal amount of shoe, a reduced amount, and a full.

To state the obvi­ous, lest it be for­got­ten, one doesn’t need shoes to run bare­foot. While going com­pletely shod­less is a viable option – and I rec­om­mended you at least try bare­foot run­ning to begin with to learn the proper form – the major­ity of run­ners won’t be able to get over the men­tal and social stigma asso­ci­ated with not wear­ing shoes. Fur­ther­more, there are some real phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers to run­ning with­out any shoes (it cer­tainly can be done, but what it takes to get there is more than most peo­ple are will­ing to do).

Just because peo­ple don’t want to run bare­foot, though, shouldn’t mean they throw out all that bare­foot run­ning teaches about proper run­ning form. Indeed, toss­ing the baby out with the bath water (or feet with the bath water) would mean miss­ing out on one of the biggest ben­e­fits of run­ning bare­foot: learn­ing a good run­ning form.

If you want to hit the road and trails with shoes, here’s a run down of the three types of run­ning shoes out there, incor­po­rat­ing “bare­foot” shoes:

• Min­i­mal

  Vibram Five Fin­gers KSO model shown.
  These are shoes that pro­vide some pro­tec­tion for the foot but offer min­i­mal to no padding or arch sup­port and allow full flex­i­bil­ity of the foot with a wide mid­foot and toe box. Some of the shoes that fit into this cat­e­gory are Vibram Five Fin­gers, Feel­Max, and Vivo Barefoot.

  • Pros: Allow arch to flex nat­u­rally, encour­age fore­foot strike with bent knees, reduc­ing shock and chance of knee and back injury.
  • Cons: If not used prop­erly or body pre­pared well enough, can result in foot and calf mus­cle pain and even injury.

• Reduced

  Inov8 f-lite 220 model shown.
  There are a num­ber of shoe man­u­fac­tur­ers who’ve come out with shoes that have less cush­ion­ing and allow more flex­i­bil­ity than their tra­di­tional coun­ter­parts. How­ever, these shoes still have padding and arch sup­port and do not allow full move­ment of the foot. The most famous reduced shoes are the Nike Frees (though they do vary from full to reduced across ver­sions), but more options are hit­ting the shelves each sea­son, such as New Bal­ance, Brooks, and Inov8.

  • Pros: A reduced amount of padding with a lit­tle more flex­i­bil­ity than Full shoes.
  • Cons: A decent amount of padding and arch restric­tion remains, hin­der­ing full bio-sensory feed­back and movement.

• Full

  Nike Zoom Equalon+ 3 model shown.
  The vast major­ity of run­ning shoes on the mar­ket today fit into this cat­e­gory, com­plete with their thick soles, rigid arch sup­port, and increased weight. Exam­ples include Asics, Under Armour, and The North Face.
  

  • Pros: All the cush­ion­ing and sup­port can feel com­fort­able and enable you to heel strike (if that’s really your thing).
  • Cons: Encour­age heel strike, increase like­li­ness of injury, don’t allow for much arch flex, thick padding causes harder strike.

6 Key Parts of Run­ning Shoes

When look­ing at dif­fer­ent types of shoes, there are 6 key parts that impact the way you run. While there are many more con­sid­er­a­tions to be made when choos­ing the right shoe for you (actual fit, for exam­ple), these are the 6 parts you need to think about in terms of a “bare­foot” feel and impact on your run­ning form:

1. Toe Box: Width of shoe in the fore­foot area.
2. Mid­sole: What lies between the tread and the insoles.
3. Arch Sup­port: Raised por­tion of mid­sole under the arch.
4. Insole(s): Extra layer(s) of padding added into the shoe.
5. Heel: Increased base and sides of the back of the shoe.
6. Weight: How heavy or light the shoe is.

Draw­backs of Full Run­ning Shoes

Each one of the 6 key parts of a run­ning shoe has an impact on how you run. Reduc­ing any of these issues will likely help you run bet­ter, with less injuries. Here are the prob­lems each part of the shoe often cause:

1. Toe Box: Often too nar­row, restrict­ing the full breadth of foot­print, and there­fore speed.
2. Mid­sole: Inhibits the nat­ural flex­i­bil­ity from front-to-back and side-to-side (lat­eral) of the foot.
3. Arch Sup­port: Doesn’t allow the arch of the foot to flex and spring back, absorb­ing some of the land­ing and pro­pelling the run­ner forward.
4. Insole(s): Stud­ies have shown that the more padding, the harder the strike (the body needs to feel the ground; less padding, lighter land­ing needed).
5. Heel: A large heel can phys­i­cally get in the way of a forefoot/midfoot strike.
6. Weight: More shoe car­ried, more energy wasted.

Many of the world’s top dis­tance run­ners have found their speeds increase and num­ber injuries reduced when they use Min­i­mal shoes that allow their feet to spread on con­tact, feel the ground, then spring them for­ward. Anton Krupicka is per­haps the most famous ultra­run­ner who shuns larger shoes in favor of a stripped-down pair (he lit­er­ally takes a knife and cuts most the padding out of his shoes). He con­tin­ues to set new course records.

» For more on the ben­e­fits of bare­foot and min­i­mal run­ning, read: Bare­foot Run­ning: Not just for bums and hip­pies.

Min­i­mal Shoes

Vibram Five Fin­gers

KSO model shown, 5.7 oz, US $85
You either love the way they look, or you think they’re the nas­ti­est things to hit the footwear world since plan­tar warts. If you get past their look, though, you real­ize they are damn close to going bare­foot. These shoes have become quite pop­u­lar run­ners, row­ers, mar­tial artists, and even busi­ness bil­lion­aire Sergey Brin, Co-Founder of Google. The Five Fin­gers allow for an incred­i­ble barefoot-like expe­ri­ence yet pro­vide some pro­tec­tion against sharp objects.
> Birth­day Shoes is a blog by Justin Owings. An advo­cate of Vibram Five Fin­gers him­self, the site cov­ers all things Vibram five fin­gers. There are numer­ous reviews on his site of all of VFFs.
> Bare­foot Ted has recently reviewed the new Vibram Five Fin­ger Treks which are made of kan­ga­roo skin which pro­vides a lit­tle more insulation.

Terra Plana Per­for­mance Shoes

EVO model shown, 8 oz, $160
Terra Plana’s Vivo Bare­foot line of Min­i­mal shoes recently pro­vided video and pho­tos of their highly-anticipated first shoe designed specif­i­cally for run­ners. The shoes look great, and the design makes a lot of sense. The The com­pany has been mak­ing beau­ti­ful light, thin-soled shoes for a num­ber of years now.
> Read my review of the Aqua’s in my post Viva La Vivo! Bare­foot form meets high style.
> Liv­ing Bare­foot took the Aqua’s for a spin and wrote up a review.

Veja

Vol­ley model shown, 11 0z, US $125
Veja has cre­ated the world’s first Fair Trade sneaker, made of all nat­ural mate­ri­als. On top of that, they cre­ated a light, tra­di­tional sneaker in the  Vol­ley. This line of shoes is based on the design of the Brazil­ian Vol­ley from the 1970s.

Feel­Max

Osma model shown, 4.2 oz, US $80
Feel­max, a Finnish com­pany, makes a full range of Min­i­mal shoes, includ­ing boots. They recently launched their their first run­ning shoe, the Osma. Weigh­ing only 4.2 ounces, the Osma is one of the light­est shoes on the mar­ket. Many of the company’s other mod­els would work well for colder tem­per­a­tures as well as casual busi­ness set­tings.
> Run­ning and Ram­bling has a review of the Osma.
> Bare­foot Run­ner has a review of the Feel­max Planka.
> Run Like Mon­key has a good review of the Osma.

Skora Footwear

2009 Con­cept ren­der­ing shown, due late 2010
The wait­ing to see what this vir­gin com­pany would cre­ate ended late sum­mer as we got a sneak peak of an early pro­to­type of the forth­com­ing Skora Min­i­mal run­ning shoe. David Syp­niewski, the man behind Skora, has been a bare­foot run­ner for over 8 years. While the com­pany is launch­ing a shoe, he says it’s more about edu­ca­tion than prod­ucts. It will be very inter­est­ing to see the first prod­ucts as well as how the edu­ca­tion com­po­nent unfolds in 2010. If early buzz is any indi­ca­tion of future suc­cess, Skora will be a com­pany to watch, and give a try.

Jinga Orig­i­nals

Orig­i­nals model shown, 8.8 oz, US $65
Jinga, a Brazil­ian com­pany, makes col­or­ful shoes pop­u­lar with dancers and urban­ites alike. The ultra-thin soles and min­i­mal uppers keep the shoes light and flex­i­ble, mak­ing them good for run­ning as well danc­ing. One poten­tial draw­back could be a nar­row toe box.
> A full review on Run­ning Quest will be com­ing soon.

Feiyue

Lo model shown, oz, US $75
This Chi­nese brand with it’s ori­gins in 1920s Bei­jing became pop­u­lar with park­our enthu­si­asts (an adven­tur­ous form of urban run­ning and jump­ing first pop­u­lar­ized in France) in France in 2006. The shoes are loved for their func­tion­al­ity and her­itage, and of late, as a fash­ion state­ment. They have lit­tle to no padding, much like a clas­sic Converse.

Puma Sneak­ers

Alsten IV model shown, 9 oz, US $78
As styl­ish as Puma’s retro-style sneak­ers are, they are also tra­di­tion­ally min­i­mal. After all, all run­ners used to run in Min­i­mal shoes (remem­ber Char­i­ots of Fire?).

Lacoste Rac­ing Flats

Shua Strap UP model shown, 12 oz, US $110
Lacoste, the leg­endary French apparel com­pany with deep roots in early 20th Cen­tury ten­nis, con­tin­ues to pro­duce shoes. While mostly worn as fash­ion state­ments, these shoes are tra­di­tional in that they don’t have much mod­ern “tech­nol­ogy,” mak­ing them an option for min­i­mal running.

Saucony Orig­i­nals

Bul­let model shown, 6 oz, US$60
Saucony’s Orig­i­nals line of train­ers, in their 1980s design, work well for a Min­i­mal shoe. And at only 6 ounces, these shoes are close to wings.

Mar­tial Art Shoes

Wushu Kung Fu shown, US $36
A num­ber of mar­tial art shoes – from Taek­wondo to Kung Fu – are Min­i­mal in their design and weight. Shoes made by the Wushu Inter­na­tional brand are the only ones approved by China’s Olympic Com­mit­tee for national teams.

Gola Rac­ing Flats

Coy­ote model shown, US $90
Gola harks back to 1905 when it was cre­ated in Eng­land with a steeped his­tory on the track and soc­cer fields. The brand has been res­ur­rected of recent and is pop­u­lar with younger fashion-conscious hip­sters. That’s good for us as the clas­sic styling dou­bles nicely as a Min­i­mal run­ning shoe.

Asics Rac­ing Flats

Piranha SP 2 model shown, 4.2 oz, US $110
Asics is per­haps best known for their large, highly-cushioned run­ning shoes. Yet they have a series of rac­ing flats that are much more light­weight. The new Piranha SP 2 is their light­est shoe yet, weigh­ing in at just 4.2 ounces. They have also left out their gel “tech­nol­ogy” which will ben­e­fit the fore­foot run­ner. It’s debat­able whether it’s a Min­i­mal shoe or a Reduced shoe.

Huarache San­dals

Authen­tic home-made model shown, US $70.95 for all leather
It doesn’t get any more min­i­mal than these. Made famous in Christo­pher McDougall’s book, Born to Run, the Huarache san­dals are what the Tarahu­mara Indi­ans of the Cop­per Canyons in North­ern Mex­ico wear when rac­ing. Bare­foot Ted sells a kit on his web­site so you can make your own.

Aqua Shoes

Speedo Sea­side Water model shown, US $30
There are a num­ber of water shoes made by a vari­ety of com­pa­nies that can work as run­ning shoes. Some have a more resilient sole, oth­ers only neo­prene. They are quite flex­i­ble and con­sid­er­ably cheaper than any­thing else out there. The down­side is that they wear out much faster and your feet can tend to ‘slosh’ around in them. Still, maybe a good place to start since they require a lower invest­ment than other Min­i­mal shoes.

Reduced Shoes

Inov8 Lites

f-lite 220 Urban Racer model shown, 7.7 oz, US $100
inov8 is an Eng­lish com­pany founded on the phi­los­o­phy that the bare foot is an incred­i­ble sys­tem to begin with. They claim that the inov8 shoes allow the foot to flex like it does bare­foot. While this is not com­pletely true, their inno­v­a­tive shaft not only allows for flex­i­bil­ity from the back to the front, it also flexes from side to side. The shoes are indeed quite light as well. The company’s truly Min­i­mal shoe is still in the works and Inov8 declines to com­ment on rumors, only say­ing it will be out in the Spring.

New Bal­ance Rac­ing Flats

MT100 model shown, 7 oz, US $75
When New Bal­ance wanted to cre­ate a lighter, more nim­ble shoe, the turned to ultra­run­ner and cham­pion Anton Krupicka (it’s likely the other way around, as Anton famously used to rip out the cush­ion­ing of his shoes). Reviews have found the shoe to encour­age a mid-forefoot strike, yet cite the lack of flex­i­bil­ity of the shaft as a drawback.

Nike Free

Free 3.0v2 model shown,  7.2 oz, US $85
The story of how Nike tried to make money off of the foot prob­lems they helped cre­ate in the first place is well doc­u­mented in Born to Run. It’s incred­i­ble to me that they call these shoes bare­foot, since they are very thick in the heel. Even on their blog, the header photo shoes a per­son strik­ing heel first. It just seems like mar­ket­ing fluff, to me.

Nike Lunaracer

Lunaracer model shown, 5.5 oz, US $100
NIke says the Lunaracer shoe “gives you the feel of a well-cushioned tempo trainer and the weight of a feath­erlight rac­ing flat.” Well, lighter is bet­ter, but only if you don’t have a large heel and lots of padding. Nike headed in the right direc­tion with these shoes but they are def­i­nitely not Minimal.

Asics Tracks

Gel Dirt Dog 3 model shown, 6.5 oz, US $80
As part of their Track and Field line of shoes, Asics pro­vides a light-weight shoe with the Dirt Dog. How­ever, the Gel cush­ion­ing pro­vides too much padding to be con­sid­ered a Min­i­mal shoe.

Brooks

Launch model shown, 9.3 oz, US $90
The newly released Launch by Brooks are meant to replace the Brooks Burn. The shoe is stripped down – lat­eral arch lug gone, for instance – and the toe box has been widened. There still seems to be too much padding for it to be con­sid­ered a Min­i­mal shoe. One nice touch is the shoe con­tains what the com­pany calls the world’s first fully-biodegradable mid­sole.
> Peter Lar­son has a solid review of the Launch on his Run­blog­ger site.

Brooks Cas­ca­dia

Cas­ca­dia 5 model shown, 12 oz, US $100
Brooks worked with ultra­run­ner super­star and West­ern States seven-time cham­pion Scott Jurek to cre­ate the new Cas­ca­dia 5. The medial & lat­eral rear­foot piv­ots are designed to pro­vide sta­bil­ity, but will also add more struc­ture and reduce ground con­tact. The com­pany does tell me that the heel isn’t as big as it looks. I felt the heel padding, though, and while not as thick as other shoes, still sig­nif­i­cant. Its weight of 12 ounces also indi­cates there’s too much in the shoe.

End Stump­town

Stump­town 10oz model shown, 9.8 oz, US $75
The com­pany should be cred­ited for look­ing into ways to make their shoes more bio-friendly (water-based cements, recy­cled and fewer mate­ri­als). While no metal is in the heel, it still pro­trudes sig­nif­i­cantly. And while lighter than some shoes, 10oz is still on the higher end of what’s being made these days in the Min­i­mal shoe cat­e­gory.
> iRun­Far has a full review of the 12oz.

La Sportiva

Skylite model shown, 9.4 oz, US $95
La Sportiva, an Ital­ian com­pany, is known for their off-road run­ning, hik­ing, and rock-climbing shoes. Their Skylite model shoe is designed for fast moun­tain run­ning. The mid­sole and shank keep this shoe from being lighter and more flexible.

Ecco Biom

Biom B Yak Leather model shown, 11.8 oz, US $220
Ecco, a Dan­ish com­pany best known for their casual and dress shoes, have teamed up with triath­lete Tor­b­jorn Sind­balle to cre­ate the Biom. The com­pany talks about the foot’s nat­ural move­ment – they say the shoe is a “replica of the human foot.” While the shoe looks inter­est­ing, you can see that it has a rather large heel. The com­pany touts a lighter insole and firmer cushioning.

Saucony

Grid Type A3 model shown, 6.7 oz, US $95
Saucony makes some nice Min­i­mal track shoes but they all have spikes. The Grid Type A3 are listed as rac­ing flats and weigh 6.7 ounces, yet the com­pany says they are designed for a good heel-to-toe strike. You can see that in the amount of heel present. Still, they are a con­sid­er­ably less amount of shoe than Saucony’s Full run­ning shoes.

Teva Ultra­lites

X-1 Evo­lu­tion model shown, 10 oz
Teva began by mak­ing san­dals for active use, includ­ing water activ­i­ties. They now carry a full line of shoes for out­door activ­i­ties. Their heel is still quite large to be good for you.

Patag­o­nia Olulu

Olulu model shown, 22 oz, US $110
The Olulu is made of hemp and leather. The toe box is quite wide, which is good, and tak­ing out the remov­able footbeds make these shoes more like a Min­i­mal shoe.

Camper Light­Weight

Pelotas XLite model shown, 9.7 oz, US $130
Camper, the family-owned Span­ish com­pany is well known for their extra­or­di­nary crafts­man­ship and sim­ple designs. Their new, lighter line of shoes have a remov­able cush­ioned insole as well.

Full Shoes

New­ton Running

Grav­i­tas model shown, 10.2 oz, US $175
The com­pany talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk when it comes to a Min­i­mal shoe. The shoe heels are still very thick and there’s more – rather than less – on the fore­foot area. Pro­po­nents say this helps them run cor­rectly, land­ing on the front of their foot first. The thing is they could do the same with much less on their feet. No need to spend over $200 to be able to do that!

New Bal­ance Chi Running

MR800 model shown, 11 oz, US $120
New Bal­ance worked with to cre­ate the first shoe specif­i­cally designed with the Chi Run­ning method in mind. Unfor­tu­nately, as New Bal­ance says on their web­site, the shoe “packs out­stand­ing shock absorp­tion and cush­ion­ing.” While these shoes may be designed for a mid-foot strike, they are still Full.

Asics GEL

GEL-Kayano 15 model shown, 13 oz, US $140
Asics first intro­duced the world to their GEL-Kayano shoe in 1993. And with each suc­ces­sive design they seem to add more shoe. The lat­est edi­tion, the GEL-Kayano 15 weighs in at a hefty 13 ounces. The very large heel and loads of padding make run­ning on the forefoot/midfoot very dif­fi­cult. These shoes are the epit­ome of the belief that more shoe is better.

Pearl Izumi IQ Light­weight Trail Shoes

Syn­croSeek III model shown, 13 oz, US $105
While con­tain­ing less foam and padding then their other shoes, Pearl Izumi has still loaded these shoes with “high rebound fore­foot foam” and a “Syn­croframe, Run Tuned Sus­pen­sion Sys­tem.” Def­i­nitely a Full shoe.

Puma L.I.F.T. Racers

Cell L.I.F.T. model shown, 12 oz, US $85
L.I.F.T. stands for “Lite Injec­tion Foam Tech­nol­ogy.” That should be enough right there to real­ize that these shoes are loaded. Some of Puma’s lifestyle shoes are lighter and more Min­i­mal than their run­ning shoes. The com­pany touts the fact that the L.I.F.T. shoes have a “cush­ion­ing tech­nol­ogy for sup­port and com­fort,” and the “PUMA CELL heel unit for max­i­mum shock absorp­tion.” Yep, this is a Full shoe.

Under Armour Speed Trainers

UA Proto Speed III Trainer shown, 12.4 oz, US $90
Look­ing more suit­able for the Ter­mi­na­tor than humans, Under Armour shoes seem to live by the motto, More is Bet­ter. No need to point out the humungous heel.

The North Face Endurance

Arnuva 50 Boa model shown, 25 oz, US $135
After read­ing how heavy these shoes are – 25 ounces! – I have more respect for Dean Kar­nazes run­ning hun­dreds of miles at a time in these. They’re loaded with tons of metal there’s no way they could flex much at all, espe­cially lat­er­ally. If you’re look­ing for a foot cast next time you hit the trails, I think I’ve found the shoe for you.

Receive posts by email – sub­scribe today.

If you found this post help­ful, please share it!